The node
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (
person) has already been noded quite well, and I would direct many to that locale. Unfortunately, the present condition of
this node is completely unacceptable.
However, due in large part to this barren space, I will fill the void with an explication of the idea of
Montaigne as "
mountain".
"All of us readers are slaves to spelling, and whether speakers of
French or not, this well-known name with the
ai sounded
eh, as in
mais. The fact is that the name is but the common word
montagne meaning mountain, and it was so pronounced in the author's time, when it and many other words sported an
ai where today the single vowel is found." (
From Dawn to Decadence, Barzun)
Montaigne lived in an age full of people who knew that they, and they alone, had the truth, direct from God -- and these truth-bearers all disagreed. Reflecting on a far wider set of facts, and with greater self-knowledge, Montaigne's
Essays reveals the evolution of a mind from a negative to a positive
philosophy.
Such is the way in which
Montaigne began his personal investigation.
"Gradually, without any upheval of feeling such as accompanies sudden conversion, he came to see that to philosophize is to learn how to live. One can only speculate about what brought on the change: it seems reasonable to suppose that the turn came from the increasingly vidid sense of the inmost self and its frequent independence from the intellect." (Barzun)
In a word, Montaigne, by searching the depths of his
soul, discovered
character.
Montaigne is, as we say, many-sided ("mountainous"), which is why we also speak of seeing someone "in the round." For practical purposes, the theme of character only exists in literature, for nobody has the time or the opportunity to look as roundly at anybody else as Montaigne looked at himself.
See also:
The Psychology of the Humors